(Provided by Michigan DNR)
Doug Reeves remembers his first time as though it were yesterday.
The first thing I ever caught was an ermine, a white weasel, said Reeves, assistant chief of the Department Natural Resources Wildlife Division and a lifelong trapper. I sold it for 50 cents to a traveling fur buyer. To me that was big time.
He was 9 years old. And he was hooked. The next year he got three traps and starting chasing muskrats. He progressed from there.
Back then you had to be 12 years old to trap beaver, he said. The first one I got I brought home in the basket of my sisters fat-tire bike.
Now, 50 years later, Reeves is still trapping muskrats, raccoons, coyotes, fox just about everything.
You have to learn a lot, Reeves said. The learning curve is very steep. The element of exploration and discovery is a lot of fun. Its a blast. I just love it.
Reeves isnt alone. In Michigan, trapping is growing in popularity.
According to DNR records, just more than 10,000 people bought a fur harvester license in 1994. Two decades later, that number has tripled.
Its been increasing, said Adam Bump, the DNRs furbearer specialist. Some of it may be because of pelt prices. When you have generally increasing pelt prices, you have an increase in trapping and the last three or four years the pelt prices for muskrats have been near or at record highs. But price for every species varies on its own, so just because rat prices are up, that doesnt mean they all are.
Indeed, its not all about fur prices, said Dale Hendershot, president of the 1,200-member Michigan Trappers and Predator Callers Association, one of three fur-taker associations in the state. A 64-year-old retired diesel mechanic from Gladwin whos been trapping since he was 14, Hendershot said the vast majority of trappers are not professionals.
Most trappers are hobbyists, Hendershot said, recreationalists who can probably make enough money to pay for their gasoline.
Hendershot said its the challenge that intrigues trappers. You really have to know the habits of the animals to get them, he said.
Trapping is not for the faint of heart, he added. If youre hunting and its below zero and the winds blowing, you have an option you can say Im going to stay in the cabin today. But if you have traps out there, you have to get out there in that stuff and check them. Its a huge commitment.
The Michigan Trappers and Predator Callers Association formerly the Michigan Trappers Association holds fur sales for its members and offers a landowner assistance program to connect folks who have issues with furbearers causing problems.
Typically its either beaver- or coyote- related, but everybodys got a problem with raccoons, Hendershot said.
The association also helps the DNR with its trapper education program, which has been in existence since 2009.
Trapping is misunderstood, Hendershot said. Were trying to make it better understood. We do a lot of educational stuff. I would hope that the educational movement is paying off.
Just like hunting and fishing, trapping is highly regulated by the DNR. There are prescribed seasons for all 17 of the species that fur-takers can harvest, and the means and methods of capture are regulated as well.
We tend to set seasons when the pelts are most valuable, Bump said. Most trapping gears up in fall and runs through the winter, though you can trap beaver and otter into spring. And weasels are open year-round.
Dwayne Etter, a research biologist with the DNR, is a relative newcomer to trapping.
As kids we messed around with it, but we really didnt know what we were doing, Etter said. I was fortunate enough to attend trappers college. The Michigan trappers association and national trappers association sponsor a biologist every year for a week to go to trappers college. Its a week of intensive learning how to trap, how to put up fur, good stuff.
I immediately got excited, so I got home, bought some traps, and started trapping. Its kind of an addicting hobby it grows and grows.
Now Etter takes a weeks vacation every year to go the Upper Peninsula and trap.
Its kind of the same as deer camp we go with the guys, hang out, cruise around the woods and we have the anticipation that were going to catch something.
Trapping is also a tool for population management; when furbearer populations begin to exceed the carrying capacity, disease inevitably follows.
Whenever raccoons get too thick, you see a distemper outbreak, Reeves said. When you get too many coyotes, you get mange. Ive seen it where I live.
To Reeves, being an ethical trapper is critical to wildlife management.
To me, its important that the animal is well caught, that its dispatched humanely, and the fur is handled in a respectful way, he said.
For others, the allure of trapping is reconnecting to times past.
Its kind of a lifestyle to some people, Hendershot said. Its a throwback to when our country was settled. And a lot of people like the feel of it.
To learn more about trapping and fur harvesting opportunities in Michigan, visit the DNR website www.michigan.gov/trapping.